As one of the world’s most recognized brands with sales in more than 150 countries Nokia has both a responsibility and an opportunity to make a contribution to tackling climate change well beyond the impact of our operations. The main contribution of our business to greenhouse gas emissions is in the use phase of our products. We estimate that our own operations account for roughly 10% of the emissions associated with our business. The other 90% comes from the manufacture of components by suppliers and the distribution of products, but mostly during the device use and charging.

But with a billion Nokia phones in use around the world even small individual improvements can add up to a substantial energy saving. The greatest potential is in the use of chargers because two thirds of the power consumed by a mobile phone is wasted when the battery is full but the charger remains plugged in to the mains – the “no-load” mode.

The scale of the opportunity is demonstrated by the fact that if all Nokia users unplugged their chargers when their phones were fully charged we estimate that would save enough energy to power 100,000 European homes. The energy involved in building and running the network is also significant. That is now the responsibility of Nokia Siemens Networks and is covered in their CR web pages.

We are tackling this challenge in two main ways:

• Reducing the no-load energy consumption used by chargers
  Since the beginning of the decade we have reduced the no-load demand by 70% in average and 90% in our best chargers. Our target is to reduce this by a further 50% (from 2006 level) by 2010. The high efficiency charger introduced with the Nokia 3110 Evolve, uses just 0.03W. This is 94% below the EPA’s Energy Star requirement.
• Alerting users when their phones are fully charged
  In 2007 we became the first mobile phone manufacturer to introduce alerts in our devices, telling users when their phone batteries are fully charged so they should unplug the charger. The alerts will be included across our product range by the end of 2008.

We have also worked with the European Union’s Integrated Product Policy (IPP) project, leading a pilot study applying the lifecycle approach of IPP to mobile phones. The taskforce work resulted in these voluntary commitments by the leading mobile manufacturers:

• By October 31st 2008 manufacturers have committed to produce an environmental index for consumers that is similar to the energy efficiency grading (A to G) for electrical appliances. It will begin with the no-load energy use of the charger and could be extended later to other kinds of environmental information.
• By October 31st 2008, mobile manufacturers will introduce communications materials to encourage users to unplug chargers once they are fully charged, and to dispose of phones responsibly
• By the end of 2009 mobile manufacturers will have added a visual reminder on the screen of all their phones to unplug the charger when the phone is loaded.